Winter's Weeping
by Moira Colleen
Summary: A year after the failed Easter, most of the Nightmares have been converted back into dream sand. The black sand is too good a weapon for Pitch to discard, but he can't afford to draw the Guardians' attention by collecting more just now. Fortunately for Pitch, a chance discovery about Jack Frost gives him an excellent opportunity...
1. Chapter 1

A single post at the corner sported an electric lamp a few feet above the sign proclaiming the name of the cul-de-sac to passers-by, though the street itself was so small it hardly seemed worth the trouble of naming. The lamplight shed a warm glow over the crusted, snow-covered lawns of the two houses that flanked the street. Here and there an ice crystal, rounded by the heat of the previous day, caught the light and gleamed like the earthly answer to the stars that peeked out from behind the clouds in the moonless sky above Burgess.

A faint hissing noise, a sound like wind in tall grass or sand falling in an hourglass, began from the townward end of the street, growing louder as it approached the house nearer the lamppost. The earthbound stars began to twinkle, then winked out altogether as something large and dark overtook the lamp and extinguished the light. The swirling black sand coalesced into an equine shape with a ragged, streaming mane and unblinking eyes that glowed like sinister fireflies. Once the irritating light was gone, the Nightmare took to the air, heading for a casement window on the second story of the nearest house. The window was closed against the chill March night, but the Nightmare seeped through the cracks with practiced ease. It paused long enough to deal a contemptuous kick that cracked the bulb of the brand-new nightlight below the nightstand before turning its attention to a small red-haired figure huddled under a patchwork quilt. Golden sand moved gracefully above the head of the sleeping child, but the bright grains had begun to darken as soon as the sleeper sensed the arrival of the familiar intruder.

Snorting softly, the Nightmare stalked closer to the child, who whimpered at the approach. As if in response, a large, furry shape rose from under the bed and leveled a pair of boomerangs at the Nightmare's throat and chest. At the same time, the closet door popped open to release a slim, blue and brown-clad figure who smiled as he menaced the Nightmare's flank with a crooked wooden staff.

"You really ought to know better than to visit the same house every night for a week straight," the second figure commented, advancing.

The Nightmare wheeled in place and kicked out with its hind legs before dashing through the window, forcing the hinges to turn outward in its desperation to escape. The slender young man slid easily through the screenless opening and took to the air to give chase.

The Nightmare dove downward from the window, weaving among trees and houses and sifting through shrubbery and fences to try to shake off its pursuer. The youngster just laughed, copying nearly every move the Nightmare made as though the pursuit were nothing more than a grand game of follow-the-leader. He kept his staff trained on the beast, though, using it to send repeated bursts of energy at his quarry. Each time the Nightmare managed to dodge, leaving some hapless bush or automobile to bear the brunt of a blast that left it coated in ice. Finally, though, the chase took the pair to the outskirts of the grade-school playground, where a well-aimed shot through the jungle gym sent the Nightmare clattering to the ground in a heap of frost-glazed sand.

"I got it!" the young man crowed, perching on top of the jungle gym. A tiny, blue-feathered head poked out of the pocket of his hoodie and chirped in reply. The little fairy emerged to fly in excited circles around the youth's head, chirping praise while he beamed proudly.

"All right, Baby Tooth," he said, after reveling in the adulation for _just_ a moment. "We've got the Nightmare trapped for now. You'd better go get Sandy so he can turn it back into dream sand."

Baby Tooth "stood" to attention in mid-air and saluted, then buzzed off to alert the Sandman to her friend's catch. The youth crouched in place to examine the frozen Nightmare while he waited. The granular body was spread out flat on the ground like a mosaic of a very chubby horse. Here and there, a few tendrils of unfrozen sand still waved about. The young man aimed his staff at them and froze them one at a time. The tendrils were too small to give the Nightmare any leverage to break free, but after so many misses during the chase, the youth figured he could use the target practice.

He was so intent on his task that he didn't notice the flash of movement to his right until it was too late to dodge. The blow knocked the air out of his lungs and sent him falling headlong onto the asphalt below. At the last moment, he recovered enough to summon the wind to cushion his landing, but he still bit his tongue painfully. Gasping, he rolled over in time to see another Nightmare looming over him for just a split second before a boomerang sliced through its torso. Black sand fell around him like sleet as the Nightmare crumbled.

"You want to watch your back, mate, if you're gonna run ahead like that." A gray-furred hand rose to pluck the returning boomerang out of the air as its owner, a huge rabbit-like creature, strolled across the playground with studied casualness.

"You saying I'm too fast for you, Peter Cottontail?" the young man quipped, scanning the area where his head had landed.

"Not on your best day, Frosty," his companion retorted. He paused then, looking at the young man with a little concern. "You all right, Jack?"

Jack nodded. "I'm fine, Bunny," he said, still searching the ground. Ah, there it was. Jack knew he had felt a tear squeeze from his eye when he bit his tongue. It gleamed dully against the dark asphalt, an unremarkable blob of crystal with a long, spindly tail. The last thing anyone needed was to step on that thing. He picked it up by the bulbous end and tucked it into his hoodie pocket, then rose to join Bunny.

Bunny gestured toward Jack's staff. "You might wanna…" he said, nodding at the scattered remains of the second Nightmare.

"Oh! Right." Jack quickly sealed the disorganized black sand under a layer of frost.

A twittering sound alerted the pair to the return of Baby Tooth, followed by the glowing golden Sandman.

"Sandy!" Jack greeted, stroking Baby Tooth's head affectionately. "Jamie was right about that Nightmare bothering Erik. Oh, don't worry," he went on when Sandy's brow creased in concern," we got it before it could bother him again, and Bunny picked up the spare we didn't know about."

"Not before Frostbite here ran ahead and got himself a face full of tarmac for his troubles," Bunny put in.

"Hey, if you can't keep up…"

Sandy let the two friends bicker, turning his attention to the task at hand. He brushed a hand over the disabled Nightmares and smiled to see the menacing black sand take its proper golden sheen. Under Sandy's guidance, the softly glowing grains worked themselves free of their icy prisons and rose to join the cloud on which the Sandman traveled the world.

An indignant squeal from Baby Tooth drew Sandy's attention back to his companions. Jack and Bunny were standing a few feet apart, as though they had been on the brink of a true argument, but now both were staring, nonplussed, at Baby Tooth, who hovered between them facing Bunny and scolding him furiously in apparent defense of Jack. Shaking his head and smiling fondly, Sandy sent a bit of his sand between the combatants. Baby Tooth withdrew to settle on Jack's hood, still glaring daggers at Bunny. The sand formed first the shape of North, then of Tooth, followed by a question mark.

"Yeah, I'll catch up to you guys in a while," Jack replied. "I just want to touch base with Jamie, you know, let him know his friend won't be having any more unwanted visitors."

"You sure spend a lot of time with that kid," Bunny commented. "You know, Guardians aren't really supposed to play favorites, Frostbite."

"Right, and you taking time away from your Easter prep tonight had _nothing_ to do with the fact that a Nightmare was hanging around half a block away from Sophie."

Bunny spluttered indignantly. "I just happen to take my job seriously," he insisted, though Sandy noted that his nose shifted to a darker red as though the Pooka were blushing under his fur. "Anyway, you might have time to go making house calls on the kids, but I've only got a week left till my holiday. See you after Easter." With no further fanfare, Bunny opened a tunnel and dropped through. A sprig of myrtle marked the place where the tunnel mouth closed.

Jack turned to face Sandy. "I really will catch up to you guys in a little while," he said. "I just really want to keep Jamie in the loop. You know? Winter's almost over, and I want to make the most of the time I've got left."

Sandy nodded, understanding the unspoken "before he stops believing in me." He reached out to give Jack's shoulder a friendly squeeze, then rose on his sand cloud and headed west to check on Tooth and North's Nightmare hunt. Jack unconsciously raised his hand to clasp the spot Sandy squeezed as he watched the glow of his friend's luminous body fade into the overcast sky. After a moment, Baby Tooth cheeped an inquiry. Jack started, then laughed.

"You ready to go, Baby Tooth?" At her chirped affirmative, Jack took to the skies again, heading for the house where he knew his first believer was lying awake, waiting for his promised visit. What a concept—someone waiting eagerly to see Jack Frost.

For a while, nothing stirred in the empty playground. Then, just before dawn, a tiny scratching sound like the scraping of insect legs began as grains of black sand rose one at a time from crevices scattered all over the pavement. The grains bounced and rolled clumsily to congregate at a single spot in the shadow of the swing set. There wasn't much, little more than a double handful for a grown man, but there was enough of the overlooked sand to form a tiny Nightmare the size of a child's toy. The miniature horse kept to the shadows as it made its way through the empty streets. It skirted Burgess' frozen pond and climbed the bank into the woods until it found the crude hole through which it recalled having emerged to seek sustenance. The herd's purpose had gone horribly wrong, and the tiny Nightmare was alone, but maybe not forever. There was still someone to whom it could turn, someone who could bring its herdmates back to it.

* * *

Myrtle = duty


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't the first tornado to hit rural Kansas that year. It wasn't even the largest, but it was definitely the strangest any part of Tornado Alley had ever seen. The shimmering vortex of blue-green whirled and flexed in ways that would make any storm-chaser think he had lost his mind. At the heart of the column a dark, amorphous shape seethed in helpless fury, trying over and over to break through the living wall that surrounded it, only to be driven back by the wind of hundreds of tiny wings beating in perfect synchronization. No warning sirens sounded for the storm, but its black heart sent out its own unearthly cry to send chills down the spines of those who could hear. Earlier in the fight those cries had brought new strength to their maker as children woke in terror at the sound, but here in the open fields the captive Nightmare's efforts were wasted on an audience of grass.

The flank of the chittering whirlwind took on a gilded sheen that spread as the source of the golden light drew near. The column stabilized; then, with a loud chirp from many voices in unison, it burst apart. The liberated Nightmare surged forward in a bid for freedom only to collide with the Sandman's outstretched hand. For the briefest moment, the Nightmare seemed to struggle within itself, black grains fighting to escape as their neighbors brightened and settled into tranquil patterns around their master. It was over in the space of a heartbeat, and the Sandman welcomed back his pilfered dream sand while the mob of tooth fairies cheered.

"Great job, girls!" A larger version of the fairies flew up to greet her proud assistants, who swarmed around her, chattering excitedly in their birdlike voices.

"Well done, little fairies," a hulking man in red agreed, pushing his way through the waist-high grass to stand below the celebration. "If Pitch should make Nightmares again, I am thinking he will not find the Tooth Palace so easy to raid a second time."

As one, the little fairies paused in their celebration to glare down at the man. Several folded their arms and turned their backs on him.

"What did I say? Tooth?" the man appealed to the larger fairy, who moved to hover nearby.

"He didn't mean it like that, girls," Tooth said, laying a hand on the man's shoulder. "They don't like being reminded that they lost, North," she went on. "It isn't like they gave up without a fight. It wasn't their fault they had never fought anything like the Nightmares before."

"Of course not," North agreed, "I just mean that now the fairies do know how to deal with them, it will be a different story next time."

"Is it too optimistic of me to hope there won't be a next time?"

"Probably, but it is a nice dream, right, Sandy?" North and Tooth turned to face the Sandman, who floated down to join them, nodding in agreement. He turned to Tooth and used his sand to form the shapes of several Nightmares and a question mark.

"This was the only one my girls have seen since Saint Patrick's Day," she said. "If there are any more, they're staying out of sight."

The Sandman frowned. His companions, including the flock of tooth fairies, attentively watched the shifting sand shapes above his head. By the time he finished, their expressions echoed his.

"You say there was a second Nightmare in Burgess?" North said. Sandy nodded.

"And it ambushed Jack?" Tooth chimed in, alarmed. Sandy held up his hands reassuringly, signing that Jack was unharmed. "Then where is he?"

"Ah, he is with Jamie Bennet, yes?" North said. "It was Jamie's friend who the Nightmare was disturbing, so Jack would want to tell Jamie everything is now okay."

"Do I hear somebody taking my name in vain?" A chilly breeze heralded the arrival of the Guardians' newest member. The tiny tooth fairies darted over to greet him, sighing happily when he revealed his perfect teeth in a grin.

"Jack! You found Jamie well, I hope?" North called.

"Yeah, and you wouldn't believe how tall he's getting." Jack landed lightly. He was still grinning, but Sandy thought his eyes looked anxious. "Listen, I'm sorry I'm so late. Jamie had a lot to tell me, and I kinda lost track of time."

"Is fine, Jack," North assured him. "Sandy only just got here a few minutes ago. There was only the one Nightmare anyway. Ha! You should have seen the little fairies! They made a whirlwind and captured the Nightmare all by themselves."

As North and Tooth described the battle, Sandy helpfully created a dream sand "Nightmare" so the fairies could reenact their heroics for Jack and Baby Tooth.

"Man, I can't wait to see that in action," Jack cheered when the demonstration was over. "It's about time those things got a taste of their own medicine. So, where to next?"

"No need, Jack." North waved dismissively. "This was the last Nightmare we know about. The fairies will tell us if they see another, but we are done for now. We should get back to our own duties."

"Oh." Jack deflated a little. "You sure we shouldn't, maybe, patrol a little longer or something?"

"Oh, don't worry, Jack," Tooth said, hovering near his shoulder. "As far as we can tell, the Nightmares are almost gone; Pitch isn't likely to be in any condition to cause trouble for a long time yet; and between Sandy's dreams and my fairies, we have eyes all over the world that'll catch on quick enough if he tries anything. Why don't you go on back to Burgess and give Jamie and his friends a Palm Sunday snowball fight? This is their spring break, isn't it? You could spend the whole week with them. We'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Well, if you're sure you don't need me…" Jack trailed off, trying to keep his tone casual. "Oh! Before you go, though, you guys need to check out what Jamie showed me." He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small stack of computer printouts which he distributed among his companions.

"Jack, these are all stories about you?" North said, exchanging his printout for Sandy's.

"Well, yeah, but belief in one Guardian indirectly supports all the others, right?" Jack said, nervously. "The kids have been working really hard on this. See, the lake in Burgess has been featured in all these magazines and websites about supernatural phenomena because it stays frozen year round, and Jamie figured that we could tie in what I remember about my family to sort of build up a legend, you know? Like how the Jersey Devil got a boost through association with the Leeds family? And, look!" Jack pulled out the pride of his collection, a black and white tabloid magazine. "Monty's article made the front page. Okay, yeah, it's just a little square in the corner, but they used the photo Pippa took of everyone skating on New Year's."

To Jack's dismay, the other Guardians' eyes widened in alarm. Even the tooth fairies looked worried.

"Jack, you let the kids take a photo of you? And submit it to a publisher?" Tooth gasped.

"Um. Yes?" Jack rubbed the back of his neck, looking from face to anxious face. "C'mon, guys. What's the big deal? Spirits have been sneaking into photos since photography was invented. _I've_ been doing it for years. I mean, these pictures are clearer than any of the others—"

"'These pictures?'" North echoed. "You mean they published more than one?" He snatched the magazine from Jack's hands and perused the brief article, scowling and shaking his head.

"Will somebody please tell me what the problem is?" Jack demanded. Tooth laid her hand on his arm.

"Jack, it isn't good to attract too much adult attention," Tooth explained.

"Why? What's the big deal? Look, I know the images of me look crystal-clear to us, but the kids say their parents only see a human-shaped blob. Even other kids can barely make out any features if they don't believe in me."

Sandy joined Tooth, signing something too complex for Jack to follow. "Jack, the reason the newest pictures are better is because you have believers now," Tooth translated. "The more people believe in you, the clearer the photos will become, even to people who don't believe, including adults."

"So what? Seems to me a lot of adults must believe in all of you on some level," Jack argued. "I mean, where do parents think the Tooth Fairy's coins come from? For that matter, where do you even get them? All those billions of coins in currency from all over the world—you really expect me to believe you get them without any contact with adults? And what about your presents, North? The kids' parents must know they didn't buy them. Now, Sandy, I guess you don't really leave any evidence behind, but Bunny definitely has adult believers. I mean, seriously—they go through all that trouble to advertise their Easter Egg hunts, they put up banners, set event times, get the kids together, but _nobody_ bothered to hide any eggs last year, so when Pitch—" Jack broke off uncomfortably, glancing at the ground. "Anyway, I don't see why one magazine article is such a problem."

"Jack, we foster belief in children because they need the things we protect," Tooth said gently. "Human beings are selfish, children included. But children ultimately only have what they're given. Adults, though… adults have the means to try to take what they want." Tooth bit her lip, struggling against a memory of greedy adults and what that greed had cost her.

North and Sandy each put an arm around her. "Jack has a point, though," North said. "It is only one magazine and a few websites. Maybe we overreacted, Jack. It is good that you are taking advantage of the resources available to you to build up your legend. Shows ingenuity. Just think: thousands of bored children in supermarket lines all over the country will see the headline about you and maybe try to find out who you are."

Jack hadn't realized how tense he was until he felt the tightness in his neck and shoulders start to ease. He ventured a grin. "Yeah, and besides, it's a weird-news magazine. Only crazy people take those things seriously, and, hey! Crazy people have kids, too."

Jack twirled his staff and took to the air. "Anyway, if we're done Nightmare hunting, I should get back to work. Gotta make sure Cottontail has good weather next Sunday."

"Isn't it a little early to do anything about that?" North said.

"Hey, I'm not the only one in charge of making it snow. Sometimes it just happens even if I'm not involved, and believe me, it takes a lot more work to make it _not_ snow on a specific day. I've got the whole 'halfway snow and Easter Storm' thing working against me in the Appalachians. Like the 'Roo said, see you guys after Easter!"

North, Sandy, and the assorted tooth fairies watched their youngest member fly off into the breaking dawn. Tooth still looked troubled.

"North, are you sure this magazine thing is a good idea?"

North hugged her, careful not to crush her wings. "Times have changed, Toothie," he said. "Humans are not so credulous of the supernatural, at least, not in the part of the world where Jack spends most of his time. Besides, spring is coming to the northern hemisphere. Jack will be gone from the magazine's circulation area for months, more than enough time for people to shift their attention back to the Bat Boy or whatever natural disaster Satan uses to escape from Hell next.

"Tooth?"

"Yes?"

"Where _do_ you get all those coins?"

* * *

**The halfway snow and the Easter storm are folk beliefs in the area where I grew up. According to my grandmother, these storms marked the end of winter. The halfway snow was a snowfall that came halfway down the mountain. Sometimes the two were the same storm.**


End file.
